Sunday, 9 February 2025

Received Ideas in Quotes 38

Yes, yes, yes.

A teacher at my school once gave a lesson about the naming of 16th century children – how each new baby might be christened John, even if it was a girl, because infant mortality rates were so high and the ancestral name must be preserved; this was supposedly proof that the parents felt no grief. We learned that widows conveniently wed their neighbours, widowers married dtheir wives’ sisters, that halfwit children were suppressed, and all of it with nothing but brutal pragmatism. As a student, I remember a professor insisting that romantic love did not exist until the Renaissance, when it was invented; that mothers and fathers did not develop parental feelings for their young until it was obvious that they were survive infancy, and other contrved academic hypotheses. Only consider Dante’s love songs to Beatrice or Ben Jonson’s lament for his beloved son, dead at seven. (Laura Cumming, On Chapel Sands. She also questions the idea that we don’t really have childhood memories: they are constructed from stories our parents told us.)

Lord Elgin did not "pinch" the Elgin Marbles. A parliamentary inquiry in 1816 concluded they'd been obtained legally. He acted with the full knowledge and permission of the legal authorities of the day in both Athens and London. He preserved them for posterity. (Toby Young)

The idea that we can all rise above our circumstances – however difficult – through a programme of self-improvement. (Guardian)

“People only use 10% of their brain” is materially false but spiritually true. (@nosilverv)

In order to keep Genghis Khan's burial a secret, a frequently recounted tale by Marco Polo states that all 2,000+ people who attended his funeral were executed. The executioners were then killed by members of his escort, who eventually took their own lives when they reached their destination. (@Morbidful)

My wife will never drink the ‘bad’ water from the bathroom tap only the kitchen tap, because, probably poisoned or something. FYI no one has had a loft tank since the 70s. (@richard_gosler)

Kitchen water “tastes better”. (@Thelandofark)

Used to be necessary when we had lead pipes. You didn’t want the water that had been soaking up the lead overnight. And yes, I still do it. (@pamatluing)

And NEVER drink from the bathroom tap because your Mum told you 60 years ago that there’s always a dead bird in the water tank in the attic. Still applies without an attic. (@HalcyonNash)

Water is pumped to a tank in the attic so that we'd be ready in case Napoleon invaded and set fire to our houses. And you should never drink from the hot tap. We were told that only the cold tap in the kitchen produced drinking water ("from the mains").

My most liked comment on Instagram is on a Wizard of Oz fan site in which I carefully explain that “Friend of Dorothy” as a euphemism for “gay man” did not begin with Judy Garland and Oz… but with the satirist Dorothy Parker who often invited openly gay men to her parties. (@RevDaniel. The first explanation is the true one.)

There is a legend that there is an underground route from the ice cave at the base of Mt Fuji extending all the way to Enoshima Cave in Kanagawa Prefecture 60 miles away. The ice cave only takes 15 minutes to walk through. (@shinobu_books)

Summer vacation was invented by Yankees (evil) solely to oppress southern children and to make them fat by letting them out of school only during the months that the climate is inhospitable so they stay inside. (@JosephFrogman. Usual explanations for summer holidays are "coincided with parliamentary terms, children were needed to get in the harvest".)

Trying to find a source for this "72 genders" myth and there is a book like that (the list is ridiculous), but the claim that it is taught in schools seems to come from a story about one speaker (not a teacher) at an Isle of Man school, which was amplified by Miriam Cates. (@Dorianlynskey)

Henry VIII had syphilis. His personality changed for the worse after a jousting accident. (stevenveerapen.com)

Your "self" is not a homogeneous thing. It is an amalgamation of various sub-personalities which have their own likes, dislikes, motivation, fears, goals. (@T_Durden_69)

Kit Kat bars are recursive. The filling is made from damaged Kit Kats. Some bars get broken while they're being made, and instead of throwing them out, the company crushes them up and that's what's inside of a Kit Kat bar: it's literally crushed up Kit Kats. (@Rainmaker1973. The candy bars are chocolate covered wafer fingers.)

My dad said that when he went back to Serbia during the summer it was really hot on the buses, but that when he tried to open the windows everyone would yell at him because they though the breeze would kill you. (@Liv_Agar.. Others add: And in Turkey. Rest of Balkans, Italy – colpo d’aria. Germans “open their windows in the winter for inscrutable metaphysical reasons”. In UK sitting in a draught would give you a stiff neck. In Albania it’s ice in drinks. Might make sense if the ice was made from dirty water.)

Not Serbian but family is from the Balkans and this is extremely common. "The wind will go through your bones, you'll get sickness later in life",  if it's windy and you don't have a jacket on. (@GroovyAlexJ)


Did anyone, ever, anywhere, literally hide behind the sofa when the Daleks came on Dr Who in the 1970s and 1980s? I know I didn't, mainly because our sofa was pushed back against the wall. (@davidmbarnett)

Hi, I’m a writer and before you ask, no you wouldn’t have heard of anything I’ve written, I get my ideas from my head and no you’re not going to write a book one day be honest. (@LevParikian)

Europeans took over the whole world to get spices only to use absolutely none of it in their own food. (@0xdumptruck. Have you tried this penne all'arrabbiata?)

The Normans were not Nordic, appeared MidEast, intro’d complex feudal tax system, conquered rest of Europe then organized Crusades back to their origins and still spoke ME languages. Most of them were via Khazaria, where upper class vanished and reappeared in France. (@cuisineillum. And we know what that means.)

There's an urban myth that DNA tests are not allowed in Israel. I believe that's an error - maybe an Israeli can confirm that for me. The myth goes with the convoluted argument that Palestinians are Israelites but Israelis are Polish, which runs and runs, contrary to empiricism. (@GillianLazarus)

Scrubber:
originates from the women who worked in the early East London furniture industry.
(@dmtoft)

Wild how many people use quantum mechanics as an excuse for reality being broken, truth being unknowable, and logic being limited. If your model of reality conflicts with reality, then update your model. Logic and reality are working fine. (@sirtobiaswade)

Gazing back at the last decade, I'm reminded that the status of any mega-brain cultist think tank is at its highest precisely before its crank theories meet reality – at which point it disintegrates faster than a salad vegetable. (@StephenMcGann)

Turns out if you let yourself want what you want*, everything is amazing (* instead of supposed-tos, shoulds, “if I were a good person, I’d…”s, rules, everybody else’s opinion, what’s "sane", what’s "reasonable", what you have worked out intellectually, etc.) (@metaLulie)

To detect any intelligence at all in a pigeon you have to give it a test designed for worms. (RK)

Paris is called the city of light because it was a very early adopter of streetlights, because the streets of Paris had been super dark and sometimes plagued by packs of wolves. (@annevclark)

Constable's The Hay Wain is an important work but it’s based on an unrealistic vision of rural life by a man whose lived experience of country life was very different to the majority of the time. It’s in the public interest to emphasise it doesn’t reflect the reality of the time. (@commuteandchill. The picture shows a hay cart being driven into a river to soak the wooden wheels so that they swell to fit their iron tires. Painter John Constable never airbrushed out those who worked on the land, operated sluice gates or herded sheep.)


Western morals and values have been predicated on theft, plunder and ethnic oppression since their inception in the Middle Ages.
(@NobleQAli)

"Conquest was invented by white people in the Middle Ages" is an actual thing people think. (@wil_da_beast630)


Before you dismiss novels as a waste of time, consider that you would literally not have an inner life right now if interiority had not been invented by English novelists in the 18th and 19th centuries. Doesn't seem like such a waste of time now, does it? (@John_Attridge)

I've heard everything from the Council of Nicaea WROTE the Bible, to Nicaea INVENTED JESUS by combining several pagan deities, especially Zeus & Serapis. Some even claim the JEWS controlled the Council and forced the addition of the Old Testament to the Bible. (@ThomasDierson)

The bird we call a turkey, Turks call “Hindi” (Indian). In India it’s called “Peru”. In Arabic, it’s “Greek chicken”. In Greek it’s “French chicken” and in French – “Indian chicken”.

The idea of the Macbeth potion ingredients being herbs is a hoax perpetrated by a US Wiccan in the 80s. (Adrian Bott)

I like to think that Mrs Beeton would have thoroughly approved when avocados were first introduced to the UK in 1968. They were marketed as "avocado pears", and allegedly people served them as a dessert. With custard. (@Attagirls)

In the 11th century, a Byzantine princess shocked Venice by eating with a fork. A bishop declared her behaviour an insult to God. (@qikipedia)

Rebeca is a great story. There’s a tendency to assume that “old”, “classic” books can’t be page-turners. (@TOMMEAD1987)

Why is there a B at the end of your thumB? Why does an H haunt the word gHost? Why the hell is there an L in couLd? One single invention is to blame: the printing press. (@robwordsYT)

Talking to a kid and it becomes clear to me that something happens after being a child (socialisation?? where they get inducted into the 'group-mind' and repeat the same thing as everyone else as each nods in agreement. (@nosilverv)

The legend of this strange structure at Christchurch Priory states that a certain Mrs Perkins (d. 1783) had a fear of being buried alive, so she requested this mausoleum be placed near the entrance of the school so that if she returned from the dead the schoolboys would hear her! (@InDamnatio)

While eating a gelato on our last trip to Rome I spotted the facade of S. Andrea della Valle was missing an angel. Pope Alexander VII found fault with Ercole Ferrata's 1st angel. The furious sculptor declared that if the Pope wanted a 2nd angel he would have to carve it himself!
(@InDamnatio. If you look at the church from above on streetview, you can see that the nave and façade don’t quite match up, and there is nowhere for an angel to perch on the other side.)

Wasn’t there a belief (not sure when exactly that prevailed) that to show your teeth when you smiled was a sign of madness? (@amijudjes)

I’m not sure. I do know that Victorian women were advised never to smile when being photographed lest they be thought promiscuous. (@TheAttagirls. Exposures were long, and it's hard to sustain a smile.)

Smugglers' sign on the wall of St Dunston's Church, Snargate, in Romney Marsh, Kent. A painted ship meant a building was a good place to stash contraband. (@david_castleton)

The boy at Pye Corner was erected to commemorate the staying of the Great Fire, which, beginning at Pudding Lane, was ascribed to the sin of gluttony when not attributed to the papists as on the Monument, and the boy was made prodigiously fat to enforce the moral. He was originally built into the front of a public-house called The Fortune of War which used to occupy this site and was pulled down in 1910. (JP. He’s a gilded cherub and not particularly fat.)

All of those wonderfully redundant phrases such as “wrack and ruin”, “goods and chattels”, “will and testament”, “hue and cry” etc arose from the unification of two legal systems: Norman French and Anglo-Saxon. The linguistic redundancy ensured that all possible parties agreed and understood the law by using both the Anglo-Saxon term (usually the first) and the Norman French term in parallel. (Quora. Cease and desist, null and void, free and clear, signed and sealed, law and order. These are known as "legal doublets".)

Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899), French painter, obtained a police permit to wear men's clothes as accepted female fashions were so restrictive. She was so popular that girls were given dolls dressed in trousers to mimic Rosa’s unconventional style. (@womensart1. The dolls were probably tailors' mannequins dressed in the latest styles.)

Fun Fact: in real life, when you put a frog in water and slowly boil it the frog will absolutely jump right out when the water gets too hot. (@rob_mcrobberson)

People have different learning styles. Facts prevent understanding. Teacher-led instruction is passive. The 21st century fundamentally changes everything. You can always just look it up. We should teach transferable skills. Projects and activities are the best way to learn. Teaching knowledge is indoctrination. (All myths, according to Daisy Christodoulou.)

Few people will actually take the trouble to find out the truth. Most simply accept the first story they hear, without any critical test whatsoever. (Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 1.20)

Thinking about claims of pubs with Spanish Armada timbers. Of ca. 120-40 vessels, 2 were captured in Channel (1 sunk, 1 reused at Chatham), 5 lost at Gravelines, 1 off Scotland, the rest off Ireland. Only 1 wrecked off Devon. Its timbers must be spread thin across all those pubs. (@jpwarchaeology)

In Iceland, you are not allowed to name your baby Viking. (@qikipedia)

Parents will really be like "Drills and rote memorization? That pales in comparison to my strategy, instilling a lifelong love of learning", and then not instill a lifelong love of learning. (@tweetsbenedict)

The origin of the word “etiquette” was supposedly the “ticket” of entrance to court ceremonies in France, on which rules of court behaviour were written. (Vogue’s Book of Etiquette, 1951)

The thistle became a Scottish emblem after invading Danes attempted to creep up on the Scottish army in the middle of the night. Fortunately they were woken by the yell of a Dane scratched by a thistle. (@NinaAntonia13)

The London fog was caused by the finer quality coal being sold off to pay for the colossal national war debt. The U.K. population had to burn the low grade coal, hence the smog. (@maskcempt. It was a combination of smoke from power stations and private houses, and fog from the river.)

People with shellfish allergies consistently react to ground coffee because all ground coffee has a non-zero amount of ground-up cockroaches which cross-react with shellfish allergies. (@zeta_globin)

Mulling spices, a blend traditionally including cinnamon and cloves, are used to flavour heated wine or cider during the Fall and Winter. The recipe varies back into antiquity with peppercorns and herbs initially used to mask souring wine. (@wingandthorn)

Steeped in intriguing history this pub certainly has a colourful past. Once under the ownership of the Church of England, it was rumoured to be an upmarket brothel. (Warringtonhotel.co.uk. Looks like a distorted version of the story that brothels on the South Bank in London were owned by the Church.)

The first of the annual "National Trust cancels Christmas" stories came in yesterday. GB News said we’ve dropped Santa Claus from our grottoes in favour of Mrs Claus. (@celiarichardson.bsky.social)

Someone just explained to me that when the chicken crosses the road in the well-known joke it is killed by a car and dies, which is why it crosses over ‘to the other side’. Whaat?! I thought it just crossed over the road. (@drhingram. People tell the same story about the little piggy who went to market.)

When I was at school a gang of 5 boys were tormenting a Jewish boy.Whilst not Jewish myself, I told the gang leader that whilst his fellows might beat me up, if they did not leave the boy alone I would make sure I broke his nose. They never bothered the boy again. (@White1939D. Violence never solved anything.)

The Tarte Tatin is a pastry in which the fruit is caramelised in butter and sugar before the tart is baked. It was created accidentally at the Hôtel Tatin in Lamotte-Beuvron, Loir-et-Cher, France, in the 1880s. (@wikivictorian)

In 1924, a cellist playing in her back garden duetted with a nightingale. The BBC, who recorded it and made it a sensation, admitted 98 years later that it was faked. The nightingale was a bird-impressionist called Madame Saberon. (@qikipedia)

A lot of people's idea of intelligence is really informed by a fictitious model of some Sherlock Holmes type character who never makes mistakes. (@visakanv)

Columbo's "Just one more thing" trick was devised when the creators were typing up the pilot script and just didn't feel like retyping a whole scene to add a couple of plot setup lines because it was late and they were tired. (@RodneyMarshall)

They were retyping the stage play, not even the pilot. (@herlinghetti)

More here, and links to the rest.
 





Friday, 7 February 2025

Grammar: Euphemisms in Quotes Again

 



I did a LinkedIn search of my old middle-school peers to see where people had landed. Overall not great outcomes, but this was a lower-class school. The ones I remember being good-looking are real estate agents. (Looks don't matter? It's one of those things people say because they know the opposite is true. @barnabasdotexe)

The people who screech most about empathy are the worst at it. (@ArtemisConsort. Begs the question. Assumes that we all agree talking about empathy is suspect.)

All definitions are exclusionary. That's what they're FOR. To exclude everything that isn't denoted by the word in question. That way, when we use words, other people know what we mean by them. I can't believe we're even having to say stuff this obvious. (@ComradeHedgehog. One way of lying with words is to make definitions either too inclusive, or too exclusive.)

Every time you ask a Canadian why they like this country they say things like “So cultural over here... so tolerant and cosmopolitan – not bigoted...” etc, all SO untrue... What these people really mean is that they find more sympathetic queens in London than they did in provincial Canadian cities. (Actor and comedian Kenneth Williams)

It is from 2014 but this is still code for "too white": "Pupils’ cultural development is limited by a lack of first-hand experience of the diverse make-up of modern British society" "...interacting at first hand with their counterparts from different cultural background..."
(@GhostOfOrwell84)

It's also disappointing that the likes of Kenneth Williams, Patsy Rowlands and Hattie Jacques have to contend with broader (read: more lowbrow) humour than before. (Imdb comment)

One big cultural progress is you don't hear people say "I like any music except rap and country" anymore. That always sucked, glad we moved on as a people. I presume nowadays people just say they don't like poor people directly. (@lastpositivist)

Have you ever considered that as we replace Christianity we just produce a cheap secular copy?
Confession: Counselling
Prayer/Penance: tons of meds
Fasting: Dieting
Confessor: Psychologist
(@BeSaintly)

Someone adds: pilgrimage: tourism, saints: celebs.

On the internet, "nobody talks about" usually means "I just now found out". (Phxsns1)

Trans rights activists call men not given access to female hospital wards “segregation”. They describe cheating men not given access to female sports as “banned from playing sports”. They call sterilising children “lifesaving healthcare”. (@Toby_1979)

The area I grew up outside Philadelphia was majority conservative but if you asked people their politics they’d say “libertarian”, “classical liberal”, “constitutionalist”, “old-school democrat”, “freedom lover”, “moderate left behind by the left”, and like nine other pseudonyms for just saying conservative. (@whatifalthist)

Iranian state media have used the phrase "hard landing" to describe the reported crash of the Iranian President’s helicopter. Hard landing is a phrase often used by authorities in Russia to describe incidents when aircraft crash. It is commonly used by the Russian Defence Ministry when reporting incidents with military aircraft... Analysts say the word "crash" is avoided by Russian officials due to fears it can cause upset or panic. This is called newspeak, and other examples include calling an explosion a “bang” and a death of a soldier “an unidentified absence from a military unit". (Will Vernon Reporting from Washington DC)

AITA? My brother claims it’s my choice to have my feelings hurt and this is his boundary that I need to respect. He’s mad that I won’t “find a compromise” and accuses me of black and white thinking. I feel like he is just grossly misusing therapy language – I don’t even know where to begin to explain that bigotry is not a boundary. (Reddit. She wants to bring her transitioning husband to visit her brother, wife and children.)

As we sit outside posh restaurant Pomus, “we watch the Saturday crowds shuffle by, visiting the likes of Peacocks and Subway”. (Tom Parker Bowles, Mail on Sunday. You can indicate a lot with a verb of motion.)
 

I love how blatantly “folksy demeanor” is elitist coastal poobah code for “can talk like those flyover country bumpkins”. (@ingelramdecoucy)

I just learned the professional way to say "I told you so": "This was identified early on as a likely outcome." (@woofknight)

"Train" is a euphemism for "remove the excuses not to use". (@ciphergoth)

The Telegraph giveth with one hand and taketh away with the other. Whilst it's good that they're covering this topic, they repeatedly use "victim" instead of "complainant" when talking about non-crime hate incidents. (@ShazzBakes)

The way some of you use the terms “neoliberal” and “neocon” makes me think you’ve reanalyzed “neo” to mean “bad”. (@focusfronting)

I just wanted to ask the mayor if “pro women” means demanding that we all pretend some men are women. (@DuncanHenry78)

For those not paying attention. When a politician says 'LGBT' or 'Queer' they mean 'trans'. When they say 'trans' they mean male. (@jo_bartosch)

What's the difference between self-esteem and ego? (@tautologer. One's boo, one's hooray.)

"Public-private partnership" is largely a euphemism for crony capitalism, in the form of no-bid/cost-plus contracts, subsidies, bailouts and giveaways, usually to highly profitable monopolies and to Too Big to Fail. We The Public pay to develop or build it and bear the risk, they sell it back to us with outlandish profits. Socialize the cost, privatise the profit. No thanks. (@Empiricist871)

When you hear arts activists say “talent is a social construct” it means:
1. They believe that if a singer or painter has more talent than others, it “oppresses” people.
2. They believe that if they controlled the arts sector they could replace the talented with their own people.
(@MrEwanMorrison)

"I was arrested for my political views!" means "I was arrested because I said we should burn down a house of refugees". (@danwaterfield)

Actual sentence from a chapter I'm reading on the neuroscience of gender: "It is necessary to approach these studies understanding that the research was conducted under the contexts emerging from normative cisheteropatriarchal white European colonialist gender norms." (@jburgo55)

I think that means: "These studies didn't tell me the things I wanted to hear."
(@elizamondegreen)

To Nigel Farage, “growing up and being sensible” means “using many small nuclear reactors”


Shadow ed sec Bridget Phillipson says Labour will address gender issues “sensibly and calmly” or some such form of words. Translation: We will go on pretending men are women, the Emperor is clothed and there is a Santa Claus, Virginia.

We can’t talk about that because the debate becomes toxic.” Keir Starmer, paraphrase

So, it’s toxic for women to talk about the material reality of their sex class because it might remind people not of that sex class about reality? We are allowed to know what sex is, but we mustn’t mention it in case it hurts people’s* feelings? Thanks Keir. *only men are people. (@sleeepysandy)


The Centrist’s Prayer. God grant me the serenity to accept the abuse women receive, the courage to label people condemning it as “woke”, and the wisdom to call it nuance. (@msediewyatt)

Is there anything that strikes fear and loathing into the heart of any decent upstanding Englishman more than the words 'Modernisation Committee'? (@CapelLofft)

Law firms specialising in “reputation management” (i.e. using libel law to shut down or intimidate journalists who are trying to expose their oligarch clients’ misdeeds). (@Ian_Fraser)

Variety magazine headline: Hollywood Storytellers Need to ‘Embrace the Change’ Driven by Tech Innovation (Translation: We want to make cheaper movies with AI. @tedgioia)

I have not seen nor heard the word colonialism used correctly since 1993. The metaphorical usage has wiped out the actual usage. (@PLazarinho)

Words you should never trust. 1. Consultation 2. Changing needs of students 3. Rethinking aspects of how we deliver our training. It's all code for the wrecking ball. (@amwilson_opera)

You don’t like punishments for schoolchildren? We’ve relabelled them “sanctions”.

Rather than the parents taking accountability and doing their own healing work which would allow the family system to transform, they hire a therapist to get the kid to adjust to the family system to fit better with the parents’ false selves. (He means “stop the bad behaviour”. They may even need to “get the appropriate help to address their relationship with alcohol”, ie “stop drinking”. @NickTaber)

Cowpat developments need to be rethought. (@samofsamshire. He means “banned”. A cowpat development is a close of executive homes dumped in a field without a bus stop, a shop, a school, a GP surgery, any open space.)

More here, and links to the rest.












Tuesday, 4 February 2025

Grammar: Amphiboly 6

That's not quite what I meant... Put together the bits that belong together.

Why scientists are counting tiny marine creatures from space (@BBCNews)

Fact is London is a mess, from knife crime, muggings, vehicle theft, crazy house prices, filth and squalor, growing anti semitism. Then again Paris is in a similar state following a relative's recent visit. (@MoreTeaAlice. And a from needs a to.)

Meilicloth mens classic casual long sleeve shawl collar buttons down cable knit cardigan sweater for men with pockets

Tourists to be let inside royal home where Queen died for the first time.
Gentlemen lift the seat.


When I was little, I used to love going to see this house in Lerwick, Shetland, where a house always had three Christmas trees in each of their front windows. (@TheScribblerCMB . Pic shows three windows, with a Christmas tree in each. How about: Always had A Christmas tree in each of their THREE front windows?)

If not in, hide in garage. (To delivery man.)
Police shoot man with knife.

Refuse tip

Refuse to be stored in black plastic sacks and placed in the containers provided.

Giant Lobster Hunters (ITV4)

Shiny women’s wool shawl
Shepherds’ pie, family butcher

CROCODILES DO NOT SWIM HERE
WARNING HORSES SLOW DOWN
BADGERS KEEP OUT
DO NOT ENTER MIRROR (In shoe shop with mirrored wall.)
RESERVED ARCHDEACONS (Notice in cathedral. Someone asks: Where do the extrovert Archdeacons sit?)

GPs offering second jabs after only four weeks in Bolton to use up vaccine

How many people need to be vaccinated to get back to normal? (The Week)

Do women really like chocolate more than men? (BBC Radio 4)

VLCC: Very Large Crude Carrier
I like red and green apples.
Female pirate historian
(Dr Rebecca Simon)

Aspiration: “giving every single person the dream of a better life”. (Andy Burnham Thanks, Andy. But I’d like a better life, not just a dream.)

More here, and links to the rest.

Friday, 24 January 2025

Malapropisms and Portmanteaus 12

As Humpty Dumpty explained, a portmanteau has two meanings packed up in one word. Wade Bradford nails Mrs Malaprop here. She (played by Selina Cadell, pictured) gets mixed up in the schemes of young lovers in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's 1775 comedy-of-manners The Rivals, and "often uses an incorrect word to express herself", for example: We will not anticipate the past, our retrospection will now be all to the future. Malapropisms are not just howlers, they improve on the original. Some are due to autocorrupt.

Conspiracy theorists love portmanteaus: sheeple, plandemic, scamdemic, Commiefornia, Brussels bureauprats, Demoncrats.

And some quite sensible people like to use silly names like Tony B. Liar, Keith for Keir Starmer; Orifice for Microsoft Office; Murica, Merkins, Usanians, Drumpf. (Sorry, Americans.)

In 2024 “true stories” are going around starring humans confused between condom and condiment, scrotum and sternum, Polish food and shoe polish, all colours of the rectum. It must be true, I overheard it in the supermarket.

I asked ChatGPT to come up with some malaprops, and this is its best effort: I’m like a kid in a candy storm!

Rich people just put their children in a quiche.
We must create repertoire with our neighbours.
It’s a subconscience decision.
This library is a vast suppository of knowledge.
Her heroic deeds must not be allowed to fade into Bolivian.
He was an armature at the game.
East is East and West is West and never the trains shall meet!

It’s a no-brainier!
The theory of evolution “looks like commie gobbily goop”. (gobbledygook)
I fanatacized about my origins.
The air was punguent.
Caviar emptor! (Caveat emptor, let the buyer beware.)
There’s so much evil in the world that we can’t phantom.

Darling, you look particularly ravenous this evening! (ravishing)
I had my operation with local Anastasia. (Probably spellcheck error.)
Post hoc ergo prompter hoc.
Pool closed because of carnivorous.
She wore an orchid pinned to her shoulder as a croissant. (corsage)
He was a wolf in cheap clothing! (sheep's clothing, from one of Aesop's fables)
Have you met my magnificent other?
I’m a social piranha! (for pariah)
They were a tilted family.
Our soup is made from locally sourced indigents. (Ingredients – indigents are poor people.)


Why do 'intense' or 'disorder' have to be despective? I love intensity and I definitely am disorder. (@adhdult)

Amazing smell of harpsichord! (Architectural writer John Grindrod as it rains heavily for the first time in months – he means "petrichor".)

Marjorie Taylor Greene called a Petri dish a “peach tree dish.” She also called Gestapo the “gazpacho.” (@DashDobrofsky)

I don’t understand these alfalfa males. (@PearlsFromMyrna)

Get obtuse all you like, it is what kids are taught at a very young age. It’s called false endocrination! (@JasonSt46700879. He means something like: Disguise it all you like, kids are taught that humans and monkeys evolved from a common ancestor.)

Artists don't have much chance against the gamekeepers /curator's. We used to moan about critic's but they only beat you around the head. Curator's sufficat you. (@cloonconra. May be a typo for gatekeepers, but I like “the gamekeepers of art”. And that's "suffocate".)

The world is in a terrible state of chassis.
(Playwright Sean O’Casey, attrib.)

It’s what I call Mary Berry food rather than Chateau de Foie Gras food. (Hotel Inspector, B&B owner)

It’s a thriving, cosmopolitan hubbub. (Martin Roberts on Homes under the Hammer)

Psychic palm and terror card readings: speical offer! By Mrs Eli, Tell past, present and future.

Why is the syncofancy on every BBC channel? (@Pady_oFurniture, sycophancy.)

"I attach a daft translation" I write to someone, with irreproachable professionalism. (@BelgianWaffling)


Say it in American:
impastor
Barochitecture
durbockle
(debacle)


Portmanteaus:
diagnonsense
bitchcraft
non-brainary
fivehead
(high forehead)
prehab
gentryists
shrinkflation
gundamentalists
mantrums, testeria, HIStrionics
non-brainary
Tescopolis
luminal
(luminous and liminal)
cottabunga (Let's build lots.)
moanoglots (people who moan when others speak Welsh on TV)
minocracy
(In power in the UK these days.)

Obaminations
invisiclues
Peckerwell
(Camberwell and Peckham in South London)
Glostocracy
(the elite of Gloucestershire)
tank-thinkers
and crankademics (@t0nyyates)
voluntold
tragesty
somnambuscripting
(AJB)
hopium
hibernacle
agrannoying
(TG)
biografiends
(James Joyce)
blanditry
(architectural – especially recladding an old building in the latest style)
prosumer
soapnesia
(Amnesia conveniently suffered by soap characters. I had a daughter 18 years ago?)
salariat


Malaprops:
decapitated coffee
Vodafone for Voltarol
paralysed milk
(pasteurised)
the prime miniature
roast beef and criminalised onion relish
cemeramic, abeautor, defliperator (ceramic, abbatoir, defibrillator – NJ)
longetivity
the placego effect
The Utter Hebrides
suave jacket
(It’s “Zouave”.)
tittering on the edge of a precipice
chez longe (How many ways are there of spelling "chaise longue"?)

elemental cheese
for Emmenthal
Pigmillion effect for Pygmalion
monothealastic
refinery
for finery
conspirituality
Fleabay
(AJB)
us lesser morsels (mortals)
Free Plasticine!
Satanizing
(sanitising)
spouncering (sponsoring)
opinuated
partisan bakery (artisan)
defunk (defunct)
Mazel Tov cocktails (Molotov)

More here, and links to the rest.



Friday, 10 January 2025

Grammar: Similes, Good and Terrible 10


What was it really like? Try not to try too hard.

The lights of the city streaked off below him like the luminous spokes of a warped wheel. An indistinctly outlined, pearly moon seemed to drip down the sky, like a clot of incandescent tapioca thrown up against the night by a cosmic comic.
(Cornell Woolrich, The Bride Wore Black. Fortunately his writing is usually pretty plain.

We are prisoners of our belief systems and, if our belief systems are threatened, good evidence peels off our brains like a fried onion off Teflon. (How about “evidence SLIPS off our brains like fried onion off A TEFLON PAN”.)


Not quite hyperbole...

Something comes over writers when they want to mention high cheekbones or cut-glass accents. They frequently get the two confused.
If you could grate Parmesan on Joely Richardson’s cheekbones she must have awful skin, poor thing. 

"Joely Richardson (pictured) looks unnervingly similar to her mother, both angular and willowy, with cheekbones that could grate parmesan." Loren Hale has “cheekbones that cut like ice”. Cheekbones that you could cut cheese on. She had cheekbones that could grace the prow of a stealth fighter. (Allegedly from a book called Snow Crash.) Could cut diamonds. Could slice you if you got close enough. Looked as though she’d stuck a clothes hanger in her mouth. Could be seen from a mile away.

Writers also reach for  hyperbole when trying to say that an actor’s performance was wooden. Quora suggests that "the kind description would be to say that the performer gave a studiously understated performance". However, writers tend to invoke Rentokil and the Forestry Commission and tie themselves into knots. Displays all the emotion of a plank of wood, wouldn't be out of place in a forest – these are mild examples.

And the same goes for scene-stealing and scenery chewing. "A common term for a scene where an actor's acting so damn hard that they're picking bits of scenery out of their teeth for days." (tvtropes.org) "It's time to wolf down the scenery like there's no tomorrow." "No scenery was actually harmed in the making of this movie." If you know of a better periphrasis, do let me know.


It’s extremely time consuming and most of the time it's like remonstrating with woodworm.
(Simon Hicks)

My mother, clearly instilled with images of us all floating through the Alps, gave us Nimble once. Only once. It was like eating fog. (@ronmanagernottm)

Young Labour are paper dolls living in a house of cards.
(@blackbirdpeeja, paraphrase)

A man 'realising he's a woman', whether after a fancy dress party or not, is on a level with my own realisation that I'm a small village in Cornwall with spectacular sea views. (@PhilBur69397549)

The only department store that appears to be still punching above its weight is Selfridges, but increasingly it looks like a beautiful, bejewelled buckle on a tatty leather belt covered in jelly-coloured paste. (Dylan Jones in the Evening Standard. By “paste” I think he means fake stones rather than jam. How about "looks like a genuine gold buckle on a rhinestone belt"?)

He responded with a silent look of horror and revulsion as if I had just told him I wanted to wear his face as a mask and go on a stabbing rampage. (Youtube commenter)

Starmer hints at baby steps to improve the current Brexit deal. RW media descend like swarms of angry wasps.  (@edwinhayward)

Stop being disappointed when a celebrity folds like a cheap lawn chair over the cult ideology. (@blackbirdpeeja)

They go round and round in circles like a bluebottle with one wing. (Joolz Denby, paraphrase)

God bless how stupid men are about make up. It's like watching a gerbil grapple with long division. (@JustRowena)

Maigret is driven from one suspect to another like a pachinko ball.

Like frost in sunshine, your sins will melt away. (Ecclesiasticus)

Sometimes 22 Bishopsgate looks like a glacier mint and sometimes “like a grey Mars Bar”. (Bob Hoskins)

Patricia Highsmith’s self-designed house was like a “run-down municipal swimming pool”. (Charlotte Mendelson, Times 2023)

The bewildering poetry of the King James Bible... has likewise been replaced by modern verses of stunning blandness, each one more like a brochure for council services than the last. (Jemima Lewis, 2023)

I felt like the tail-end of a misspent life. (Erle Stanley Gardner writing as A.A. Fair)

My sister's puff pastry – like eating a wet book. (Benny Hill)

Truss delivering that speech with all the charisma of a regional manager announcing a consultation on redundancies.
(@entschwindet)

She has the demeanour of a reserve junior spokes-creature for Number 10. (WUR)

As thick as a canteen cup. (@DaiBevan1)

He remembered where he had seen Celia Harland, and when. A picture rose before his eyes, and it seemed to strengthen like a film in a developing-dish as Hanaud continued. (AEW Mason, At the Villa Rose)

Her sound is that of a serpent on the move. (Jeremiah)

Our Government will try to cling to power like super-glued limpets. (Donal Savage)

A new library in Fayetteville is blank on several aspects. It looks like an East German insecticide factory. (@sharp_architect)

Skinny jeans look like an Alaskan gold-miner’s underwear.

He looked as if he had been hastily assembled by a child out of bricks. (Agatha Christie, Nemesis)

I have built a rockery to plant flowers in, so there should be some colour to the place instead of it looking like a non-descript part of the USSR. (Nigel Jarman)

An over-cleared garden is like a “Protestant cemetery”.

I read quite a lot of Judith Butler for my PhD, it's like trying to eat soup with a fork. (@FemmeLoves)

A period of cloying reconciliation worthy of the ending of the sort of cheesy film shown on long coach journeys in Mexico. (Luigi Amara)

More here, and links to the rest.

Wednesday, 8 January 2025

Hypercorrection 2

 


Hypercorrection can doubtlessly happen to anyone whom has studied grammar for fewer time than to which they would like. (@StanCarey)

Top marks for day brightening to the person at work selling a recently re-covered two seater sofa with matching “poofay”. (@oddthisday.bsky.social)

Nice one from newsreader earlier this evening.  Pronounced 'Jesuit' as 'Jer - suite'. (@Dymvue)

It’s choreetho. Not choritso, chorizzo, choreezo or koritso. Choreeso is acceptable if you’re from Latin America or Andalucía. (@MitchBenn)

Someone on Mend it for Money has brought along a “shay longe” (chaise longue).

The old De Luxe cinema in Hastings is pronounced “De Loo”.

Antique dealer Raj Bisram says “Hello, I’m Raj” and people say “Hello, Razh”. Charles Hanson asks “Is it Raj or Razh?” “Raj.” Tim Wonnacott continues to call him “Razh” in the voiceover. (Say it as in "British Raj".)

See also Beijing, Taj Mahal, adagio, Sharjah, Giotto, Azerbaijan and The Glass Menagerie.f

Gareth Armstrong who reads Maigret currently is excellent, but he calls Madame Blanche "Madame Blonche" throughout.

In a Perry Mason episode, the town of Bayonne is called “Bayon” with a French accent.

Teresa of “Aveeeya”. It’s Teresa de Avila with the accent on the first A.

A French woman complained that British called frogs grenouEEEEEE, when they’re something like grenOOOOOOie (grenouilles). Also avoid putting a thumping stress on the last syllable of any French word or name, like Emmanuel Ma-CRON.  

R3 pronounces the ch of "Munich" as if Scottish eg "loch". No such place. Either mew-nick or Muenchen. (Nicholas Lezard)

RIP Buchi Emecheta, whom many called “Buchi Emencheta”. (See also Marlene Deartrick and Bob Geldorf.)

It’s not my forte should be “fort” not “fortay” because it’s French not Italian. (It's Italian.)

I was once mocked for saying enfilade as if it was French – but Fiona Bruce has just said it like that on the Antiques Roadshow! It also means a row of rooms without a corridor but doors in a line.

If you come from Cheshire, you may avoid the northern U by calling the place "Solihell", and rhyming the first syllable of cushion with “rush”.

Elrond to rhyme with menton, petit patapon etc, as if it was French. (And you pronounce the second N in the French town Mentone.)

cherchez la faim for cherchez la femme (Crime at Black Dudley, read by David Thompson), debutant for a female debutante (you pronounce the last T), Cezain for Cézanne, Mondrian as if it was French

panné velvet for panne, en massé for en masse, rosé quartz for rose quartz, sallé for salle (room). The entire paragraph is a grandé slap down. (Twitter)

accacciatura: Variously pronounced acky-acka-tura, achackachura or a-catcha-tura. The last is correct.

currier for courier (or “couri-ay”)

Veeyet for Charlotte Brontë’s Villette (It's more like Vee-lette. In a reading of Agatha Christie’s Cards on the Table, Geraldine James keeps saying “meeeeee remerciements” instead of “meeel”. Mille remerciements, a thousand thanks. But how do you say “precisément”?)

Eau de Neeeee, Jacques-Emeee Blonche (Pronounce the L in Eau de Nil, Jacques Emile Blanche.)

Fewer than two weeks ago. In the US, fewer than half of people who apply for disability benefits – about 45% – are ultimately accepted. (Less than half.)  The UK accepts fewer than 1% of global asylum seekers. (“Less” is right here.)

Mark Françoise for François (A colleague called Françoise was referred to as François.)

Geshtapo, Keir Shtarmer, shmorgasbord, Epshtyne for Epstein (Epsteen), Gestapo, Starmer, smorgasbord. (Some middle-class people pronounce a name as they think it would be pronounced in the country of origin, even when the owner has anglicised it.)

marquee cut for marquise, marquee for an English marquis (MAR-quiss), Pair Lashay for Père Lachaise cemetery (rhymes with days)

Andrew Sabisky quickly became Sabinsky or Sabitsky – even on the news.

Skhiapparelli or Shiapparelli for Schiapparelli (It’s Ski-apparelli.) Kh on the beginning of croissant.

au naturale for au naturel

Gill Sans as if it was French, sans doute. (It's a sans serif typeface designed by sculptor Eric Gill.)

Adding an extra I to a Latin plural. One gladius (sword), two gladii; but one gladiolus, two gladioli. Genii for genie. (Genii is the plural for genius.)

ménage for manège (horse-training yard)

Douchey Originals for Duchy (Dutchy)

Louis Confort Tiffany (Comfort)

tumeric for turmeric

beastiary for bestiary (It’s like bestial.)

mako for macho, kletsmer for klezmer, Kay Guevara for Che (Chay) (Writer Gwen Raverat cringed when guests called the family’s dog “Sanko” – he was called after Sancho Panza from Don Quixote.)

tray for trait, coupe de gray or grah for coup de grâce

homage as if it was French (In English it's homidge. If you want to be continental, spell it "hommage".)

a cachet of weapons for cache

ambergreeee for ambergris (You're thinking of verdigris.)

Sharon for Pluto’s moon Charon (Surely Karen?)

Loi (as in French for law) for Loïs (Lowiss), Moët et Chandon as Mo-ay ay Chandon (It’s Moette.)

grande vizeeeay for Grand Vizier, Cartière for Cartier, loo-me-ay festival (lumière – loo-me-air),
Renier Lalique (René Lalique)

prey a manger for Prêt a Manger, vinagray for vinaigrette, Demaray for Demarest, Violay Szabo for Violette Szabo, Violette le Duc for Eugène Viollet-Le Duc (Viollay), Magree for René Magritte

skedooley for schedule (skedyool or shedyool)

trowma for trauma (rhymes with "former"), owral for aural

Kenwood’s orangerie (It’s an orangery.)

Lapsang Soushon as if French for Lapsang Souchong (and it's "Soutchong")

Many kudoi to him! (Kudos is not a plural.)

empañada for empanada, habañero for habanero, Cartageña for Cartagena, peña for pena

tour dé France for tour de France, denouément for dénouement, née plus ultra (It's "ne plus ultra" – Latin, not French.)

escabesh for escabeche (It’s escabaychay and it’s Mexican.)

guy-sher girls for geisha (gaysher)

détent for détente, Carcasson for Carcassonne, La Vie Parisien for Parisienne, bon chance for bonne chance, blang de sheen for blanc de Chine, rattan to rhyme with au gratin (ra-TAN), the poet Verlain for Verlaine – Radio3! And Americans think fillet is a French word (filet or feelay).


But how do you say Saint-Saëns? The fabric "faille"? And Puigdemont?

More here.

Thursday, 2 January 2025

Grammar: Synecdoche 3

 

Candy striped


Part of a term comes to stand for the whole term.


You can’t just pander or be fodder. You have to pander to something or be fodder for something. (Fodder is animal food.)

I think we are barely starting to scratch the possibilities of language. (@ArturoGP_. Scratch the surface of...)

In Dickens, the Artful Dodger is known as "the Artful", and Susan Nipper as "the black-eyed". (Wasn't there a Greek goddess known as "the white-elbowed"?)


A podcast is now a “pod”. The pod was originally the device you listened to the podcast on.

About 40 years ago I was in a radio repair shop and overheard someone talk about his girlfriend’s “cassette” which was broken. He meant “cassette player”. But a “cassette” is a “tape cassette”, and the device was really a “tape player”.

“Hello, baby,” he said with his Cheshire smile. (The Love Machine, Jacqueline Susann. That’s “Cheshire-cat smile”.)

A flat is a flat tyre, but flats are flat shoes.

A paper carrier is a “carrier bag”. And if a “carrier” is a plane, it’s a “people carrier”.

Long-term progress has been glacial: It has moved at a glacial pace – a few inches a year, like a glacier.

hidebound: by tradition or convention
static park: park for static caravans

gyratory: gyratory system
dwell: dwell on it

dating to: dating back to (Shouldn't it be “dating from”?)
candy stripes:
candy-cane stripes

sock: sock puppet
capsule: capsule wardrobe

contacts: contact lenses
dairy: dairy products

laser: laser printer
microwave: microwave oven

social housing, social homes: homes for poor people (From social services, “on the social”, social benefit?)

broach: broach the subject
raise: raise the question

Stap me vitals! Vital organs are meant.
town hall: town hall meeting

processed
for commercially processed (which means “full of additives”)
Fracking is “Not very friendly”. (Environmentally friendly.)

divan: divan bed
sedan: sedan chair

the presence: the royal presence
the socials: social media

television: television set
viral: viral meme (Adjectiving is a young person’s thing.)

rending: heart-rending (not "wrenching")

We live in a fossil world. (A world that runs on fossil fuel, ie coal and oil.)

terrace: terraced house
hatch: hatchback

unscripted: unscripted programming
anti-trans: anti-trans ideology

Let’s drop the onshore wind ban: wind farm ban (The wind bloweth where it listeth.)

Get a grip! On yourself.

Raise X: raise concerns about X (“I’ll broach X about Y” means “I’ll broach the subject of Y with X”.

generous shed: generously proportioned shed
climate flooding: flooding caused by manmade global warming

incandescent: incandescent with rage

Master's: master’s degree (or “master of arts degree”)
hypopara (medical condition): hypoparathyroidism

windfall tax: windfall tax rebate (Puzzled me for years.)

Just seen “early onset” for “early onset Alzheimer’s”.

refinery: oil refinery
planning: planning consent

cleft: cleft palate
quality: high quality

Corny is short for cornball (“A ball of popcorn and molasses”, says the Free Dictionary.)
Slots are slot machines (playing the slots).
And “props” on aeroplanes are propellors. (Thought they were struts of some kind.)

More here, and links to the rest.